


The Heart of Mandalore

by Clever_Girl_26



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: All Mandalorians share one brain cell, Bisexual Space Disasters, Children of the Watch is a Cult, Corruption, Crisis of Faith, Cultural Differences, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Needs A Hug, Force-Sensitive Original Character(s), Found Family, Identity Issues, Mandalore needs to get its shit together, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Mando'a Language (Star Wars), Multi, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Non-Traditional Relationships, Politics, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slavery, Slow Burn, The Author Regrets Everything, Touch-Starved Din Djarin, no beta we die like stormtroopers, probably will contain smut, space is gay
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-03-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 22:00:50
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28767471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clever_Girl_26/pseuds/Clever_Girl_26
Summary: The Mandalorian, Din Djarin, has lost everything: his ship, his creed, his child. Now he has a saber he doesn’t need and the right to rule Mandalore which he certainly doesn’t want. He wants things to go back to how they used to be. But the life of a bounty hunter was never an easy one and returning to that life is much more difficult than he first thought. Especially when he picks up another stray: a strange woman whose past is perhaps even more shrouded in shadows than his own.In other words: some broken people help each other heal and rebuild.Set after Chapter 16.
Relationships: Cara Dune/Original Female Character(s), Cobb Vanth & Original Character(s), Din Djarin & Cara Dune, Din Djarin & Cobb Vanth, Din Djarin/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. Shabiir

**Author's Note:**

> I'm going to try my best to keep this as canon complacent as possible. However, I have only watched the Star Wars movies and, of course, The Mandalorian series. Wookieepedia has been my lifeline while writing this. Some bullshit will likely be made up as needed, but I'll try to keep it within the realm of possibility. 
> 
> Updates will likely be very, very sporadic. Winter break has given me a lot of free time, but that will all disappear once classes resume. 
> 
> First fic and not beta read. Sorry for any errors. I blame the American public school system cuz it sucks and the fact that I am not a English major. I'm used to writing research papers and lab reports and it probably shows. Sorry. 
> 
> Also, I know less than nothing about mechanics and robotics, especially as they are applied to Star Wars. There will be errors. I have no idea what I am doing. I am sorry.
> 
> It should go without saying but do not copy, do not copy to other sites, and give credit where credit is due.

“Can you fix it?”

The kubaz eyed the pile of junk masquerading as a modified Belbullab-22 starfighter. The modifications had not been to the fighter’s advantage as Din had soon discovered after he had bought the craft. The neimoidian who had sold it to him had been rather shady now that he thought back on it. He’d barely managed to make it to Taris before the engine had practically dropped out of the fighter.

“ _I think you’re better off selling it for scrap and buying a new ship_ ,” the kubaz whistled.

Din gritted his teeth in frustration. He couldn’t afford to buy a new ship even if he sold this one for scrap. He’d been lucky enough to buy this one and have credits left over for fuel. If he could get back to Nevarro, Karga could give him a couple of high reward pucks that might give him enough credits to buy a more reliable mode of transport. But until then he had to make due with this price of junk that looked more at home in the cluttered junkyard he was now standing in rather than in the stars.

“Can you fix it?” He repeated, holding out a bag with most of his remaining credits.

The kubaz took the bag, weighing it in his hand. Liking the heft he nodded. “ _I will have one of my mechanics take a look at it_.” He turned and loudly whistled, “ _Bucket head!_ ”

Din prickled at first. Bucket head was one of the ruder monikers people tended to give him. But it was quickly apparent that the kubaz was not using the moniker to refer to the Mandalorian.

A human woman emerged from one of the shipping containers that had been fashioned into a hanger in the junkyard. She wore a grease stained jumpsuit that had seen better days and odd copper coated helmet that was starting to streak green from oxidation. It reminded him uneasily of the head of a dark trooper but with a strange visor and a filtration mask that likely served to make the yellow, smog filled air that surrounded them less caustic on the lungs.

The woman scampered over scrap that had been left laying about the relatively cleared area of yard and dodged a pack of DUM droids with relative ease despite the large toolbox she carried with her. However, she did stumble momentarily when she neared them. Din was fairly certain it was in surprise at seeing a Mandalorian because when she finally did reach them she wouldn't stop staring at him. She wasn’t facing him directly but he could feel her intense interest and he was certain she was eyeing him through the side of her visor.

His suspicions were only further confirmed when the kubaz chirped irritatedly, “ _Bucket head!_ ” and the woman jumped as if she'd been caught doing something she shouldn't have.

She turned to faced the kubaz head on, giving him her full attention. “Yes, Shizeheem?”

“ _See what you can do with our friend’s ship_ ,” he ordered.

“Yes, Shizeheem.” She bobbed her helmet clad head before scurrying off to begin examining the craft.

“ _If you need lodging for the night, I have a sister who has a series of rooms she rents out. I could ask if she has a free room_ ,” Shizeheem offered.

“That is very kind of you.” He nodded his acceptance and thanks. Hopefully, the sister gave a discount for her brother's customers because he didn't have very many credits left and still had to buy fuel on the return journey to Nevarro. He would rather not spend a night outside on Taris, not with the strange, yellow air, but he would if he had too. 

His attention turned from the kubaz to his ship and the mechanic working on it.

“ _Don’t worry. She’s one of my best mechanics. If anyone can get your ship back into the stars it’s her_.” Shizeheem reassured as Din watched the mechanic tug a panel off the fighter with an unnerving amount of ease. “ _Can I interest you in a drink? I’ve got a case of Naboo wine I’ve been meaning to crack into._ ”

“No, thank you.”

“ _Some tea then? I’ve got a few packets of a nice Takodanan spice tea left_.”

“Thank you, again. But I have to decline.”

He didn’t have to. There was nothing stopping him from removing his helmet around people now that he had broken his creed. Really he shouldn’t even be wearing his helmet at all anymore. But it felt so wrong to not have it on. It was part of him and without it he felt vulnerable in a way he hadn’t since he was a child. He couldn’t bring himself to take it off to have a drink with this stranger, no matter how generous the offer.

“ _Ah, well._ ” Shizeheem shuffled his feet. “ _If you change your mind I’ll be in my office._ ”

“Thank you,” he called after the kubaz as he moved off toward the hangers on the other side of the yard. Shizeheem only waved a hand at him without turning around. To the Mandalorian’s experienced eye the kubaz’s posture screamed frustration or poorly concealed anger. However, his experience with the kubaz people was limited compared the humans he dealt with most often.

“Did I offend him?” He asked the mechanic when he noticed that she had been studying the exchange.

To his surprise she laughed, static crackling in her helmet's modulator. “No. Not how you think, at least.” Then, without further explanation, she ducked back into the bowels of the fighter, worming her way in until only her well scuffed boots stuck out.

Din scowled beneath his helmet. What did she mean by that? Had he or hadn’t he offended the kubaz?

He considered ignoring the strange mechanic and going off to do, well, something. Perhaps he would go apologize to Shizeheem and explain why he couldn't join him for a drink or ask where he could find his sister's lodgings. Anything but stick around here doing nothing. The mechanic was clearly very intent on her work and the quicker she got done fixing the fighter the faster he got off this planet and back to Nevarro. Instead though, he found himself approaching the mechanic.

“What do you mean?” He asked when she popped out of the ship briefly to grab a different sized wrench from her kit.

Instead of answering him, she countered with a question of her own. “Tell me, Mandalorian, how many credits did you give him to repair this piece of bantha fodder?”

“Nearly a thousand.”

The woman tugged on some electrical line and cursed under her breath when a large chunk of important looking machinery fell out of the bottom of the fighter near the cockpit. She climbed back out the fighter. Oil was now streaked across her helmet and even partially obscured her visor, but she didn’t try to clean it off.

“Well, this thing,” she gave the hull a reprimanding rap with a large wrench, “isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Not without at least three times that amount of credits in parts alone.” Her helmet beeped softly and she grabbed a rag to finally wipe away the oil. “And Shizeheem isn’t exactly prone to undercharging for labor.”

Din was tired, emotionally as well as physically, and now he was frustrated. Couldn’t anyone just be straight with him for once in his life?

“He seemed confident that you could fix it for what I gave him,” he snapped and immediately regretted it. He was relying on the mechanic to fix his ship. It wouldn’t help his case to offend her. Besides she might not be answering the questions he wanted answered, but, if she was to be believed, was being more honest than her employer.

However, the mechanic didn’t appear to be offended. She seemed to ignore the barb at her lack of skill and only laughed. “Shizeheem might be an idiot when it comes to starfighters, but even he could see the state this thing is in. And while I might be one of the best mechanics on this side of Taris, if I do say so myself, even I’m not _that_ good.”

Din sighed. People had tried to scam him plenty of times over the years with varying degrees of success, but they’d never managed to be quite as successful as they had this week. First the neimoidian who had sold him that starfighter and now this kubaz junker. When had he become so gullible? He shook his head. Who was he kidding? He knew when. He hadn't been himself since he had lost the child, his child. The kid was with his own people now, but that didn't stop him from worrying about him every second of every day. Was the kid sleeping well? Were there small amphibians wherever he was now that he could eat? Was the Jedi going to refuse to train him like the other one had? His head was so consumed by worrying about Grogu and the sadness from loosing him and breaking his creed that he couldn't concentrate on anything else.

“Why is he having you fix my ship when I can’t afford it and why did he offer me a drink?” He asked.

“Well, for the ship, the cost of fixing it up will be easily offset by its sale. And as for the drink, he probably offered it in order to administer something that’ll help him get his hands on your armor. That much beskar is enough to get his termite infested ass set up nicely on the other side of the planet and if he can find someone to buy an entire set of Mandalorian armor in mint condition,” she whistled appreciatively, “he might even be able to get off this kriffin’ planet and leave the Outer Rim entirely.”

“Dank farrik,” he cursed, slapping the side of the fighter in anger. Something clattered inside that probably shouldn't have. 

He clenched his fists together and tried to breath through the anger and frustration. Now was not a time for those emotions. He needed a clear head to figure out how he was going to get himself out of this one. But he couldn’t find it in him to care about why he needed to. He couldn’t find much to care about since that day on the Imperial cruiser when he had broken his creed and his child had been taken away.

Without conscious thought he stormed toward the cockpit of his fighter.

“What are you doing?” The mechanic called up to him as he threw open the cockpit hatch.

“I need my spear,” he growled as he reached in and closed his hand around the familiar shaft. The last light of the evening sun filtered through the smoggy haze and caught on the sharp point of the spear’s head as he pulled out the beskar spear.

The mechanic turned toward him when he climbed down from the cockpit. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Careful, Mandalorian,” she warned, all notes of playful affability gone from her body language and modulated voice. She faced him, unreadable mask to unreadable mask. “Shizeheem is as cruel as he is cunning. I’d hate for such fine beskar to end up in his slimy hands.”

He nodded an acknowledgment of her warning even though he could barely hear it over the blood singing in his ears. If the kubaz wanted his armor, he would have to ply it off his cold, dead body.


	2. Ba'slan shev'la

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: Violence

It was with an ear ringing kick to the head that Din Djarin came to his senses.

 _Dank farrik. What was he doing?_ He couldn’t just throw his life away like this. What if something happened to the child and he needed his help? He would be of no use to anyone dead. 

His thoughts were interrupted by swift, sharp toed kick to the side where his armor didn’t protect him. The trandoshans could be mean bastards and the kubaz’s bodyguards were no exception.

And the kubaz. The mechanic was right. He couldn’t let Shizeheem have his armor or spear. Or the other weapon. He wished that Bo-Katan had just taken the kriffing thing from him. He didn’t want it, but he certainly didn’t want it getting into the hands of someone who wasn’t a true Mandalorian. There were no Mandalorians out here, that he knew of, who would recover these vestiges of their heritage. They would be lost, like so many other parts of their culture.

Throwing out an arm to deflect another kick to his helmet, he rolled across the dusty hangar floor. One of the nastier trandoshans aimed a kick for his crotch but he countered with a kick of his own, delivering it right to the man’s reptilian ankle. Something gave under his foot that shouldn’t have and the trandoshan hissed in pain before slamming down onto the floor himself. A swift kick to his head assured that he’d stay down, for a time at least.

Before another trandoshan could move to take his compatriot’s place, Din took the opportunity to scramble to his feet and grabbed his vibro-dagger from his greave. Which was a good thing because two of the trandoshans rushed him a heartbeat after. He slashed the dagger at the first one, the blade easily cutting through the trandoshan’s claw like fingers. The trandoshan screeched as he grabbed at his freely bleeding, fingerless hand. Din spun and slammed his vambrace into the head of the second, smaller one. Both stumbled back, one licking its wounds and the other holding its head. It gave him a second to think.

He needed to get out of the hangar. He stood a better chance out in the junkyard where he could hide and then pick his attackers off one by one. Here in the hangar they could pin him into a corner and gang up on him. But he needed a weapon to get out of here, at least one more formidable than his vibro-dagger which was little better than a bread knife against the large, fearsome trandoshans. His pulse rifle, along with his jetpack, had been damaged when he’d been thrown forcefully against a pod racer and now hung uselessly on his back, but both his blaster and spear were on the ground nearby. No one had thought to collect them in the middle of all the fighting after he’d dropped them. The blaster was closer to him than the spear, but the spear was closer to the door. Besides, he couldn’t leave the spear here on the kriffing planet. It was beskar and forged by a Mandalorian. It was too priceless to his people to be left behind. And no way was he going to use the kriffing saber. Not unless there were no other options. He could get to the spear. Probably.

Well, there was nothing left to do but try for the spear before the trandoshans attacked him again as a unified force. He couldn’t take seven trandoshans at once, not without his whistling birds. Din was good, but not _that_ good.

He feinted in the direction of the blaster before turning and racing toward the spear instead.

“ _Kill him, you overgrown lizards_!” Shizeheem whistled frantically as Din dashed across the hangar floor toward the spear and freedom. “ _Kill him!_ ”

Another trandoshan that he hadn't seen before stepped out from behind the body of a carrier he was running past. A sandy colored, scale covered fist flew at him. He ducked under the blow but he was too focused on dodging the attack to notice the patch of oil on the hanger floor. His foot hit the oil slick and flew out from under him. Din crashed to the floor just out of reach of the spear.

Three toed trandoshans feet thundered toward him. The vibrations of their feet through hangar floor as they raced after him could be felt even through his beskar as he lay on the ground. They might be slower than him, but he didn’t have time to get back to his feet. So, he rolled the remaining distance to the spear.

His hand closed around the shaft just as the first trandoshan, the same who'd taken a swing at him, reached him. He spun the spear around, the head just catching him across the legs. The spear head slashed across his thighs and blood quickly welled up to stained the yellow fabric of his attacker's pants. It was little more than a scratch, but the trandoshan hissed and backed a step away, waiting for the strength of numbers when the rest of the pack caught up. 

Din rolled to a crouch just as a second, bolder trandoshan reached him. Din brought up the spear and braced it against the floor. In the trandoshan’s rush to attack him he saw the spear too late. His own momentum caused him to impale himself on the razor sharp end. The trandoshan screamed, floundering on the end of the spear, only to gag as his own blood began to drip from his toothy mouth. The Mandalorian threw the dying trandoshan’s body to the side and dislodged it with a fluid motion, coming to stand and face the first trandoshan and the others that were fast approaching.

“You will die today Mandalorian,” the first trandoshan snarled, pulling out his blaster. “If not by my hand then-“

Din hurled the spear forward, catching him in the throat and cutting off his threat with a wet burble. He really didn’t have time to listen to threats right now. The other bodyguards had almost reached him.

He paused only long enough to retrieve his spear and grab the dead trandoshan’s blaster before running out the door and into the night.

“ _What do I pay you incompetent nerf herders for?_ ” Shizeheem’s loud, angry whistle followed Din into the smoggy night air. “ _I want him dead! Dead, I tell you! Dead! I want him and his kriffing armor brought to me! NOW!_ ”

The Mandalorian ran to the opposite edge of the cleared yard before pausing and turning to face the hangar. The doorway was just barely visible through the dark and smog. It was only distinguishable because of the light from inside the hangar that filtered through the open doorway.

He didn’t have to wait long for the first shadow to appear in the doorway. Aiming at the shadowy figure he fired the blaster. A hiss of pain told him that he had hit his target but the figure did not fall so his aim must not have been completely true.

The figure ducked back into the hangar, clearly expecting more blaster fire. Din fired the blaster a couple more times just for good measure before turning and running off into the depths of the junkyard. Hopefully the trandoshans would hesitate long enough to give him a viable head start. 

It quickly became apparent that the junkyard was even more of a maze than the Mandalorian had originally thought. Din may have hoped to loose his pursuers in the maze of scrap but he was quickly loosing his own bearings. The thick smog covered everything making the shadows of night even darker and reducing visibility to only a couple of paces. The towering piles of thrown aside detritus and the long forgotten metal skeletons of space craft rose out of the darkness with little warning, causing him to change direction unexpectedly as he ran. He could feel their towering presence above him even if he couldn't see them. The farther into the depths of the junkyard he ran the narrower and less defined the paths became until he was scrabbling over and under objects too large to have been cleared by hand and his beskar armor was scraping against metal as he squeezed himself through narrow passages. 

The worst part though was the heat. He'd noticed it when he first stepped out of the cockpit. It was a different sort of heat than that of Tatooine or Arvala-7. It felt like the air itself was trying to suffocate him in a humid, fowl smelling soup with every breath he took. Sweat dripped into his eyes and ran in rivulets down his spine. The discomfort was nothing compared to the havoc it was wrecking on his helmet's systems, especially the heat sensor.

Due to the darkness and smog he had been counting on relying on the heat sensor to warn him of any approaching lifeforms. However, the thick air was nearly the same temperature of most hotblooded lifeforms which made everything in his HUD red. After he had all but tripped over a mutant rat nearly the size of a massif, who had thankfully been just as surprised as he was and had scurried away without a fight, he deactivated the heat sensor. Din could only hope that the hot air was giving the trandoshans' heat sensitive eyes just as much trouble. 

The Mandalorian eventually stopped running when he didn't hear any signs of pursuit for several minutes. Needing a moment to catch his breath and formulate a plan, he climbed up on top of a derelict ZH-25 Questor-class and sat down, wincing with pain from exerting his badly bruised body. If a trandoshan did manage to spot him he wouldn't be able to hit him with a blaster from the ground and he would hear him if he tried to climb up. 

Din needed to get out of the junkyard and away from Shizeheem's hired muscle if he was to have any chance to get off this planet alive. Considering how much his armor was worth and how angry Shizeheem had been when he escaped he doubted he'd call off the trandoshans until they caught him. The Mandalorian didn't like his odds against that many trandoshans. They were formidable hunters after all. 

It seemed to him that there were two possible ways of getting out of the junkyard alive. He could either make his way through this maze of a scrapyard to the tenements he had seen rising out of smog to the east of the main hangars and use his remaining credits to buy passage to the city on the other side of Taris where he could hide out until he could figure out a way off this hell hole of a planet. Or he could go back to the hangars and try to steal a ship. He had seen several ships in the hangars that looked to be in flyable condition. The path to the tenements would contain far fewer trandoshans and subsequent blaster fire. However, the junkyard was not at all small and at the rate he was going he'd die of thirst or heat exhaustion before he found his way out of this maze. Which left sneaking back to the hangar. If he could manage to get past the trandoshans or kill them all, which was going to be a difficult job although not impossible, the hangar appeared to be the best option. If a risky one.

The only problem was finding his way back to the hangars. His navigational devices had been acting up ever since he entered the junkyard. There were probably metals and other materials in the junkyard, ones that were there against legal regulations, that were interfering with them. However, he did recall that the pathways through the scrap heaps, if they could even be called pathways, had been wider closer to the hangars and gotten narrower the farther he ran. Perhaps he could make his way back to the hangar if he followed progressively widening paths. 

Sighing, Din stood and prepared to climb down from his relatively safe perch. Chances were he wasn't going to make it out of this junkyard alive. But if he was to die tonight, he'd do it as a Mandalorian and he'd take as many of his enemies with him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ba'slan shev'la - Strategic disappearance


	3. Tomad

The Mandalorian did eventually make his way back to the hangars, but it was no easy thing. It took hours of finding himself in dead ends and having to backtrace before he got anywhere close. And then he had ran into three trandoshans who must have figured that he would make his way back to the hangar yard. He'd gotten the jump on them but it had been a close thing. Although his armor had protected him from the worst of the fight, a bolt of blaster fire had grazed his leg badly enough that he had to use the spear to walk. Coupled with the injuries from his earlier beating, he wasn't up to fighting any more trandoshans anytime soon. Hopefully they had been the only ones left near the hangars and the rest were off searching the junkyard for him. However, he wasn't counting on being that lucky.

Ignoring the snot-like slime coating that stuck to his armor, he leaned against the body of a homing spider droid that had seen better days next to a small hanger and peaked over the top of it to survey the work yard. The smog had started to lift some over the last half hour and it was enough that he could see into several of the nearby hangers that had their doors open. He could make out the distinctive shapes of a TIE fighter and a Naboo N-1 along with what might have been an early model Delta-7 that looked to be in flyable condition. He wouldn't be certain unless he got a closer look.

The work yard appeared relatively empty. The only moving things that he could see were several DUM droids working on a pod racer under the supervision of a teenage twi'lek boy. Din was sure the DUM droids wouldn't notice him unless he shot one of them with his blaster. The boy on the other hand would be another matter entirely. He glanced around nervously at any unusual sounds, such as when a pack of mutant rats scurried across the work yard just beyond the edge of the light cast by the open hangar's door. If Din wanted to get to the hangars with the starfighters he would have to move past the hangar with the boy and droids. The quickest route would be directly across the open yard, but the safer route would be to go back into the scrap and skirt around the hangars.

His leg throbbed in protest at the thought. Perhaps if he could distract the boy somehow he could-

“With some hindsight, I suppose I should have warned you about the trandoshans.”

He swung around, blaster at the ready. The mechanic put up her hands when faced with a blaster, but continued to lounge against the hanger wall among the shadows with an air that was far too casual for someone who had a Mandalorian bounty hunter pointing a blaster at them. He cursed himself silently. The sensors in his helmet should have alerted him to her presence even if she had been out of his line of sight. She was certainly close enough to set them off even if some of them weren't working properly. 

“Shizeheem isn’t exactly the most popular person on Taris,” she remarked. “His enforcers are particularly brutal. He only hires trandoshans and the uglier and dumber the better. What they lack in intelligence and social niceties they make up for in brutality and determination. Which is what he likes about them.” She paused, head cocking slightly to the side. “Did you kill him?”

“Shizeheem? No.” He shook his head. He didn’t lower the blaster.

She sighed and pushed off the hanger wall. “Shame.”

"What are you doing?" He demanded as she took several steps toward him without any regard for the blaster that was still clearly aimed at her chest. 

"Giving you a hand. You clearly aren't going anywhere fast with your leg-" She paused when a roar broke though the night air far too close for comfort. It appeared that the bodies of the trondoshans had been discovered. "Well, that doesn't bode well," she mused with the same causality that she would over some unusual weather. "Let's get you inside." 

Considering his options were staying here and being killed by the trondoshans, making a mad dash for a starfighter that may or may not be operational on a bum leg, or accepting the mechanic's help, he opted to holster his blaster and allow the mechanic help him inside the hangar. It was the best option for him maybe seeing his kid again someday.

She wrapped an arm around his waist and half guided, half carried him inside the hangar. The woman was stronger than her lean frame belied, although it shouldn't come as surprise. She was a mechanic after all and probably spent her days lifting things much heavier than a Mandalorian bounty hunter in beskar armor. 

Inside the hangar was that piece of junk Belbullab he had flown in here on, several sleek speeders that looked like they could do circles around that thing he had left back on Tatooine, and the parts of more droids than he cared to count. Din's overall feelings about the trustworthiness of droids had improved, but he still wasn't entirely comfortable with them or, in this case, the parts of them. Especially when she started leading him toward a pile of astromech droid parts. 

"What are we doing?" He asked cautiously.

"You are going to hide behind these until after those fucking goons eventually come knocking and stop bleeding all over my floor." 

Din looked down at his leg. The flight suit around the injury was dark with blood but it hadn't soaked through to the point where it was dripping onto the floor. Yet.

"I'm not bleeding on your floor," he grumbled as she lowered him gingerly to the floor.

"You better keep it that way, Mandalorian. I hate cleaning this kriffing shop."

He looked around. The hangar was a little cluttered, but relatively organized and cleaner than several other of the hangars he'd seen in the junkyard. He didn't see any oil on the floor for one. It certainly wasn't messy compared to some of the workshops he'd been in over the years. She wasn't entirely opposed to cleaning the hangar. 

"Yeah, looks it," he commented as he scooted backwards some to hide himself more completely behind the droid parts.

"Shut up and do something about that so you don't bleed out," she countered, tossing him a thankfully clean rag.

He caught it. "Thank you."

He tied the rag around his injured leg and had to bite back a grunt of pain. The wound was a bit worse than he had originally thought. He wasn't in danger of bleeding out but he wasn't going to be moving with his usual speed anytime soon. If he was going to get out of here, he was going to need help and the mechanic was the only one offering aid. But why she was doing so, he couldn't fully fathom. She appeared to harbor some hatred for her employer, but spite couldn't be her only motivation for rescuing him. Not when faced with the risk of being hunted down by Shizeheem's trandoshan bodyguards and beaten or, as it was very likely, killed.

"Now, you stay here," she ordered. "And don't come out, no matter what happens, or else you'll get us both killed." 

He placed a hand on his holstered blaster. "I don't want you getting hurt on my account."

To his complete bewilderment she rapped a knuckle against the top of his helmet. No one had ever done that to him. People didn't just knock on a Mandalorian's armor, especially on the helmet. It was so unexpected he couldn't muster a response other than to gape at her in shock. 

"I won't, as long as you don't pull your blaster or do anything else stupid, you kriffing idiot. I thought Mandalorians had more sense under those helmets of yours, but everything I have seen today makes me believe that you have nothing beneath your beskar helm," she scolded, waggling a finger at him like he was still an _adiik_. 

Under his helmet a heat spread across his face that had nothing to do with the stifling heat within the hanger. He certainly hadn't done anything to make a good impression on the mechanic or endure his people to her. He'd flown in on a complete wreck of a ship, had avoided being poisoned by the sheer shame involved with removing his helmet around strangers, stormed off to die fighting in his rage, and then had gotten his ass beaten before he decided to run away. He was an embarrassment to the memory of his creed and the armor he wore. 

"Now, swear to me upon you honor as a Mandalorian that you will not pull a weapon at any point and that you will stay hidden no matter what you see or hear. Swear it, Mandalorian!"

"I swear it." His creed may have been broken, but he still had some honor left. He would keep his word once given, even if he didn't like what he had agreed to. 

"Good, because we're going to have company soon. Now, try to do a good job at pretending you're not here."

"Shouldn't be too hard. I should blend right in with all these," he looked around at the droid components around him, "parts."

He wasn't entirely sure why he had said that. Perhaps it was the stress of the situation or he had lost more blood than he had thought. Either way, the mechanic appeared to find it humorous. Her mask didn't hide her snort of amusement, although it did make it crackle oddly. "Quiet, Mandalorian. Good droid parts don't have a sense of humor," she countered. 

Droids themselves didn't have a sense of humor, in Din's experience. But, he didn't point that out to the mechanic. She was already gone, setting across the shop to the Belbullab. He settled down on his side and watched through a gap in the stack of parts as she rummaged in her already open toolkit for a small, handheld welder and set about mending the ship like she must have been doing before she came to his aid. It was a relatively quiet tool, but he hadn't the faintest idea how she had known he was outside. The hangar had no windows, only the large door to the work yard and the small side entrance that they had entered through and both had been shut. There were no security feeds that he had seen and he'd heard no alarm being tripped when he'd neared the hangar. And he knew he'd been quiet. The boy certainly hadn't heard him. She must have been taking a break outside in the smoggy, suffocating night air and happened to see him. 

His musings were interupted by the hangar's side door opening with a bang. Three trandoshans entered the hangar. The mechanic didn't even look up from her work.

"Bucket head!" The leader, a tall, green brute, snarled as he stalked toward her, flanked by his companions.

"What is it Krissic?" She growled, still not looking up from her work. "Can't you see I'm busy?"

The trandoshan grabbed the woman by her shoulder and spun her around causing her to drop her welder on the floor with a clatter that echoed in the hanger. Krissic grabbed her by the front of her jumpsuit and hauled her up in the air.

"Show me some respect when I'm talking to you, human," he hissed, teeth flashing.

"I'll keep that in mind, Krissic," she lipped. "What do you want?"

“Have you seen the Mando around here recently, bucket head?”

“No, I haven't seen a thing,” she replied with an exasperated sigh, still ignoring the fact that the massive reptilian male had her by the collar of her jumpsuit and her feet were currently not touching the ground. “I’ve been working on this piece of junk for hours, Krissic.” Enunciating her point she kicked the fighter’s hull with her heel.

The trandoshan growled menacingly. "Did you hear anything?"

"Now that you mention it, I think I heard something scurry by the back not too long ago. I assumed it was just a rat, but I guess it could have been your missing Mandalorian."

"When was this?"

"Kriff if I know. As I said, I was working on the Belbullab. Dank farrik, but this thing is a piece of bantha fodder. I'm surprised the guy managed to make it here in once piece, much less alive. The thing's hyperdrive-"

“Which direction was he going?” Krissic snarled, shoving her against the hull with enough force to knock the wind out of her lungs with an audible whoosh.

Din's fingers flexed toward his blaster. He wanted nothing more than to shoot the trandoshan in the face for his rough handling of the mechanic. But she had told him to stay where he was and she didn’t seem concerned for her own well-being. Not yet, at least.

Quickly recovering her breath, she answered in a wheeze, “Back toward the tenements.”

The trandoshan grunted and threw her to the ground. She landed with a quiet hiss of pain that was almost entirely masked by the clatter of her tools scattering across the metal floor of the hangar.

"I'll let your master know how helpful you have been," he sneered.

Then the trandoshan turned away without a backward glance and rushed out of the hangar with a hiss to his companions.

As soon as they closed the door behind them with a booming slam, the Mandalorian used his spear to haul himself to his feet and hurriedly hobbled over to the mechanic’s side. She was still on the ground, but he quickly saw that she was just busy picking up her scattered tools and returning them to the toolbox rather than seriously injured as he had feared.

“Are you injured?” He asked as soon as he reached her.

She shook her head. “Nothing more than a bruise. Its certainly nothing I haven’t experienced before.”

Din looked her over with new eyes as she continued to pick up her tools. The jumper she wore was thread bare and ill fitting. She had used spare wire to cinch it closer around her waist and hold the rolled up sleeves in place. Her boots were so worn that the soles were starting to fall off and were held together only with the help of electrical tape. The scarf she wore around her neck had more holes than not and was wound around and around to offer any actual coverage. Her baggy clothing and helmet hid much of her appearance but when she had helped him earlier he had felt a body that, while lean and strong, was too thin for most human females.

“You're a slave,” he stated quietly as she put the last tool back in her toolbox and closed the lid with a soft click. 

The mechanic snorted and pushed herself up to her knees. She took the hand he offered to help her stand although he doubted she actually needed it. “You just realize that now?”

He did rather feel like an idiot for not seeing it sooner. All the signs had been there, but he hadn't seen any one of them. “I didn't know there was slavery here on Taris.”

She snorted. “Slavery thrives wherever the eyes of the law are absent and the eyes of the law are far, far away from this side of Taris, especially in these junkyards. Besides, I doubt you'll find a planet in the Outer Rim that doesn't have slaves somewhere in the less savory places."

The mechanic was right. He'd been to many of those unsavory places. But Taris was predominantly a city planet. It was a hub for people and civilization in the Outer Rim. He would have thought that here, of anywhere in the Rim, would have been the least likely to have active slavery. 

“It was very brave to help me and risky. I don't want to imagine what your master will do if he finds out what you’ve done.”

She laughed, the sound cracking with static through her mask. “It’s not bravery. I'm helping you out of spite and survival.”

“Survival?”

“I have the feeling we can help each other out of this rather unpleasant situation.”

He bristled slightly. Whatever she was about to suggest he knew it would entail a great deal of trouble.

“How so?” He asked cautiously.

“You need a ship to get off Taris. Not one of these in the hangers. They either can't fly or Shizeheem has them locked down so well even I couldn't get one free before were were swarmed by his goons. However, I can get you a ship. One I've built myself in secret. I just need to get this thing off,” she unwrapped the scarf she wore to expose a slave collar, “and I have the feeling you can help with this.”

He reached out slowly and touched the collar. It beeped a quiet warning when his glove touched the locking mechanism. “I am familiar with the chips used by slavers on Tatooine. I have never heard of slave collars before, not like this.”

The only slave collars he had ever seen had just been that, collars. There had been no fancy mechanical locking mechanism or any of the other electrical components that were obviously in the one she wore. Not to mention the collar looked to be made of Durasteel. 

“Same concept really. I run away it goes boom. I damage the lock it goes boom. It’s just more exaggerated then those little firecrackers they use in the chips. Sometimes you can survive a chip exploding, granted you’d likely be paralyzed or missing a limb. These things are guaranteed to blow your head off. There’s nothing quite like exploded brain matter to discourage other slaves from escaping,” she chirped a little too cheerfully.

Din was beginning to get the nagging suspicion that she might not be entirely sane. She, at the very least, lacked a defined sense of self-preservation.

“I’m not much of a mechanic,” he said slowly. “What do you think I can do get it off that you can’t?”

She cocked her head to the side and he was certain that she was grinning at him from beneath her helmet. “I have the feeling that you have something that might be able to do the job.”

His thoughts immediately went to the Darksaber that could cut through everything but beskar. His hand went to the belt pouch where that cursed saber rested.

“Who told you?” He snarled, reaching for his blaster with the other hand.

“Easy, easy,” she held up a placating hand. “No one told me anything. I just had a feeling you might have something that could help me. Could be a key, could be a droid with the right programming, could be a kriffing lightsaber for all I know or care. All I know is that it can get this thing off without killing me.” After a beat she added, "Probably." 

He stared at her. How could she know, but not know at the same time? It didn't make any sense. But she seemed to be telling the truth. Nothing about her body language told him that she was lying to him. Besides that, she had done nothing but help him since he'd arrived on this kriffing planet. She could have betrayed him to the trondoshans and spared herself a beating or simply left him in the junkyard to be found. Instead, she had helped him, even if it was for her own gain. The risks she was taking were not to be taken lightly.

"You say you've built a ship. Can it get us off Taris?"

"She's star worthy, if a little rough around the edges. I've only managed to steal enough fuel to get her to the moon though. I hope you didn't give Shizeheem all your credits."

"I have enough for fuel." Maybe not enough to buy the amount of fuel needed to get back to Nevarro, but certainly enough to get them out of this system and away from the immediate threat of Shizeheem and his trandoshans. 

With a sigh, he finally relaxed and moved his hand away from the blaster. “I have something that might be able to cut through your collar.”

“Ah, excellent.” She fished a marker out of her jumpsuit pocket and without looking in any reflective surface, she drew a zig-zagged line across the surface of the collar from one side to the other.

“What are you doing?”

“You’ll have to cut along this line to not set off the explosive.”

Right, the explosive that would blow off her head and probably kill him too if he didn't do this right.

As if reading his thoughts she added reassuringly, "The charge explodes inwards. With your beskar its unlikely you'll be seriously injured."

"Exactly how unlikely?"

She shrugged. "One out of five chance you'll loose a finger? Depends on how quick you are."

"Huh, well, those odds could be worse."

"True, Mandalorian. Very true," she laughed. "Now, show me this tool of yours that will get this kriffing thing off."

He reached for the pouch with the saber, but hesitated. The saber was worth infinitely more than his armor and spear. Not only was it the only one of its kind in the entire universe, it was also gave the owner the right to rule Mandalore. Not only could it cut through the slave collar she wore, but it was worth more credits than she could ever possibly spend in her lifetime. However, it was unlikely that she knew about the Darksaber. He had never heard of it and he was a Mandalorian. Likely she would just believe it to be a Jedi's lightsaber. Still highly valuable, but not much more than his beskar spear which she hadn't even given a glance. 

Finally he pulled out the saber. He needed her and she needed him. They were going to have to work together to get off this planet alive. 

She cocked her head to the side when she saw the saber hilt. "What is-" she cut off with a quiet gasp when he activated it and the ghostly black blade sprung forth. 

Both of them were silent for a long, tense moment. Din waited for her reaction. What was she thinking? Did she recognize it?

Finally she said, "You know, when I mentioned the lightsaber I was joking, right."

Din relaxed some. She obviously hadn't recognized it's true nature. "I hate to disappoint."

"You certainly don't. Baffle the mind, sure. Defy expectations, sometimes. But you don't disappoint."

He snorted. "High praise from someone I only met earlier today."

"Hey, I'll sing your praises from here to Coruscant if you free me, Mandalorian. Now," she clapped her hands together, "Lets get this off. The night's a'wasting and we don't want to still be in the junkyard once the sun comes up."

"Yes." Din nodded. He shifted his grip on the unfamiliar weapon. "This might be easier if you sit down."

"Of course."

She moved over to one of the speeders and sat down. Sitting down her head was level with his chest. With a deep breath, she bent her head to the side and pushed the collar from the back to create a finger’s breath of space between the fair skin of her neck and the metal he had to cut. "Ready?"

The Mandalorian tightened his grip on the dark saber. The saber didn’t feel right in his hands, not like a normal weapon, not like baskar. It was too light. It was as if the blade had no weight. Which might very well be the case. He wasn’t used it and so it was clumsy in his hands. Now was no time to be clumsy. He had several inches of metal to cut through and had to make three precise cuts at a long diagonal through the metal. All of that had to be done without triggering the explosive or injuring her with the blade itself.

At his hesitation the mechanic reached out and covered his hands on the saber with hers, stilling the blade that he hadn't realized was trembling. “Just in case this thing does blow, the ship is hidden in the swamp west of here. Look for a great tree that twists back down into the water before reaching for the sky again. I image she's covered in vines by now, I haven't seen her in a couple of weeks. They're sticky buggers and stronger than you think. You'll have to remove some of them first, at least to get in. She should be fast enough to out distance anything Shizeheem sends after you, just don't linger long at the refueling station."

“Thank you, but hopefully I won’t have to make the trip alone.”

She chuckled, removing her hand from his. “Yeah, you won’t want to do that. As I said, she’s still a little rough around the edges.”

Concern began to settle uneasily in his stomach. “The ship can fly? Can't it?”

“Better than that pile of junk you brought in. Now-“ She returned to her earlier position. “-let’s get to it. Night’s a’wasting, Mandalorian.”

Din inhaled deeply. The Darksaber was a core piece of Mandalorian culture and while he did not deserve or want the responsibilities that came with it he had won it and it was his. The weapon was his and he was a Mandalorian. Weapons were part of his religion, part of being a Mandalorian, and part of him. Any weapon in his hands became part of him. The saber would cut only what he wanted it to cut. It would cut through the collar but would not cut her. 

He exhaled and began to cut. It did not cut as easily as he had hoped. Durasteel was not beskar, but it was tough enough to hold up to the rigors of space travel. It did not stop the Darksaber, but it resisted. The metal glowed molten red before giving to the blade. He worried that the hot metal was hurting her, but she didn't flinch away or show any other signs of pain. So he continued to cut slowly and carefully along the path the mechanic had drawn. One short slice at an angle, then a long cut that sliced almost perpendicularly for two inches, then finally another short cut at an angle. 

At long last it was done. The collar had been cut through and the mechanic was still alive. He took a step back with a sigh of relief and deactivated the saber. As soon as the blade vanished he returned it to his pouch. It always made him uncomfortable to have it out, even when he was alone. 

The mechanic reached up slowly and touched the collar. Tentatively, she ran a finger along the cut he had made. A shuddering hiss of a breath crackled through her modulator. Then she quickly grabbed both sides of the collar and wrenched it open. With a scream she threw the collar across the hangar. It hit the metal wall with enough force to leave a dent. The collar bounced off and exploded midair. It was not a large explosion and it was centered toward the center of the collar but it still rattled the inside of the old shipping container. 

He could only imagine what the mechanic was feeling right now, but that explosion had been too loud. Someone must have heard it. 

"We need to leave," he warned, "Before someone comes to investigate."

She inhaled deeply, standing tall and straight. In that moment, he could see that she had cast off more than just her slave collar. Some subtle facade had lifted to reveal a woman who was proud and strong. She was free now and Din could almost pity anyone who tried to put a collar on her again. She rolled her neck and then her shoulders. Finally she exhaled.

"Yes. We need to go." She turned back to face him. "Can you walk without my aid?"

"Yes, but not fast." He nodded toward the speeders. "Couldn't we take one of those?"

"No. Using one of those at night through the yard would be ill advised, to say the least. Besides, they have trackers in them that we don't have time to remove." She returned to her toolkit and hefted it. "As long as we keep moving we should be alright. They don't know the yard like I do."

He eyed the not at all small, metal toolbox. "You're really bringing that thing with us?"

"Kriff, yeah I am. These are good tools. Besides, I'm a mechanic. I can't ply my trade without some and what better way to get some than stealing them from my former master?" She chirped as she retrieved a quarterstaff from beside the side door. 

With a sigh, Din limped after her. "Well, don't ask me to carry it for you."

"Wouldn't dream of it," she laughed. "You've got enough to carry, Mandalorian." 

And dank farrik if she wasn't right. He shook his head. It had been a long night already and it wasn't even close to being over. 

For the second time that night the Mandalorian left one of the junkyard hangars. Only this time with an ally by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tomad - ally
> 
> adiik - child between 3-13 years old
> 
> Nothing I've read about Taris suggests it has a moon. But nothing says it doesn't have one either. ;)
> 
> Also, part of this chapter got posted prematurely by accident, so apologies for that.


	4. Hettir

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Winter break is over so updates will become even more sporadic. Sorry.

It was hard going. The path that the mechanic led him along twisted it’s way through the junkyard and was often narrow and the footing uneven. It was agony on his leg.

Din had been worried that the mechanic’s toolbox would slow their flight, but she didn’t falter. The same could not be said of him.

For a time he had been able to simply grit his teeth and push himself through the pain. But after an hour he began to feel dizzy and weak. A quick glance at his leg told him that the wound had reopened. The rag had become wet and dark with blood. It wasn’t long after that he started slipping on the slimy fungus that grew all along the narrow paths and stumbling over debris that he had stepped over easily earlier.

When his boot caught on a free coil of wire and he wasn’t able to catch himself with the spear, it was only the mechanic’s quick hand managing to grab hold of the rifle on his back that kept him from falling. She hauled him back to his feet and helped him to an engine unit that was half sticking out into the path.

“Sit,” she ordered.

Din didn’t have to be told twice. He barely managed to stifle a sigh of relief as he sat down and was able to take his weight off his injured leg.

“I need a moment to catch my breath,” she huffed, sitting down on the path next to her toolbox without seeming to care about the slime that got on her jumpsuit. Granted, it wasn’t like it could get any dirtier.

While Din caught his own breath, which he actually did need to catch, she began rummaging through her toolbox. After a moment she extracted a beat up canteen from among the various tools. He watched as she tapped the canteen against the side of her helmet near the corner of her jaw. The mask section retreated from the bottom half of her face, exposing chapped lips and fair skin. The mask was an interesting design. He’d seen helmets that had visors that retreated like that but never a mask. But it was a good design for dealing with the smog of Taris. It minimized her exposure to the acrid air, keeping her eyes from being exposed when she took a drink or ate.

She unscrewed the canteen’s top and took a long gulp. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until he saw her drinking. While the smog had abated some, the heat had not. The cooling system in his suit had been on the fritz since his encounter with the dragon on Tatooine. He’d patched it up the best he could but he was no Armorer and it only worked half of the time he wanted it to. Now was one of those times.

In order to distract himself from his thirst he asked, “How far away is the ship?”

“We’re about two-thirds of the way there.” She took another swig from her canteen then used it to gesture at his wound. “How’s your leg holding up?”

He shifted and winced as pain stabbed up his leg. “I’ll survive.”

She scoffed. “You’re a terrible lier.” She screwed the canteen cap back on before pocketing it in her jumpsuit and got up to crouch beside him. “Pop the thigh guard off. Let me give it a once over.”

He jerked away from the mechanic’s searching fingers. “Don’t,” he growled as he tightened his grip on his spear.

The mechanic pulled her hands back with a sigh. “Relax. I’m not asking you to remove your kriffing helmet. But this needs tending to or you’re going to attract every rat from here to the tenements.” She tilted her head up toward him. “I’ve found the bones of my friends after they’d cut themselves while salvaging and been swarmed by a pack. It’s not pretty.” She lightly tapped a finger against the edge of the beskar plate. “Please Mandalorian, let me see if I can do anything about this.”

The mechanic was right. Din couldn’t keep on like this. They wouldn’t make it through the yard with his leg in this condition. The bleeding had to be stopped, at the very least.

He sighed. “Do you have anything I can use to cauterize the wound?”

“I’ve got a soldering gun.”

He’d used one of those to patch himself up on numerous occasions. “Then I can do it.”

“Oh no you don’t, Mandalorian,” she scoulded. “It’s my tool and you need to catch your breath.”

Frustrated, he snapped, “Have you ever used that thing on flesh?” As much as Din appreciated her helping him, she didn’t need to bandage him up as well. He was injured, not dying, and he knew his way around a soldering gun, especially when it came to patching himself up. She didn’t need to treat him like an adiik. He wasn’t helpless. He'd been taking care of his own wounds for years. 

“Do you think slaves around here get bacta or any other sort of medical treatment?” She snapped right back. “I’ve done this so many times to myself and others I can do it with my eyes closed.” She snorted then rocked back on her heels with a sigh. “I’m sorry. I don’t like people using my tools. And well, fixing things is what I do."

She reached out and snagged her toolbox, pulling it closer. She snatched the small solderer out and held it out to him. “Here. Start on that. I think I’ve got a salve in here somewhere that might help.”

The Mandalorian didn’t take it. Of course she didn’t want him touching her tools. She had still been wearing a slave collar an hour ago and these tools were her only possessions in the universe. Besides, she was a mechanic. Her tools were almost as much a part of her as his armor was apart of him.

When he didn’t take the solderer she looked back up from her one handed search through the toolbox. Her lips pinched as frowned at him.

“It’s alright.” He reached down and pulled off the blood soaked rag then undid the binds on the beskar. They came away painfully. “I understand.”

Her lips quirked in a gentle smile. “Alright then. You just sit there and look pretty.”

Din snorted as she carefully pulled the fabric of his flight suit away from the edges of the wound. “Mandalorians don’t sit around looking pretty.”

“Sure you do,” she teased. “Mandalorians sit on occasion. You’ve got pretty armor. Of course you can sit around looking pretty.”

That almost got an actual laugh out of him. However, an exploratory poke of the mechanic’s finger had him hissing in pain instead.

“Sorry, about that,” she apologized.

“It’s not like it won't be worse soon.”

“True.” She poked again but he was expecting it this time. Frowning, she poured out a dribble of water onto the wound and rubbed at it with a slightly less blood soaked corner of the rag. He clenched both of his hands around the spear tightly at the pain.

“So, you’re one of the ones who don’t remove your helmet around others?”

Although he was thrown by the question, both by how personal it was and the fact that she knew enough about Mandalorians to ask it, he appreciated what she was doing. “Trying to distract me?”

“Is it working?” She asked as she wiped at the wound again.

“Yes,” he grunted.

“Yes it’s working or yes you’re that kind of Mandalorian?”

"Both."

"Ah, I see."

The grin she flashed him made him slightly uneasy. It was all teeth and the glow from the tip of the solderer cast ominous shadows on her face. He suddenly really wasn’t looking forward to her using the thing on him.

To distract himself he asked her his own question. “You’ve met other Mandalorians before?”

She shrugged a shoulder while pinching the wound together with the fingers not holding the solderer. “I’ve run across a couple over the years. The galaxy isn’t that big and I haven’t always been here on Taris.” Or a slave, he was certain. “Even as rare as Mandalorians are these days, you’re bound to come across one or two eventually. I haven’t come across one in years, not since before the fall of the Empire, yet I still ran into you in this hellhole.”

“This certainly is a hellhole and I’ve been to Tatooine.”

She snorted. “I’ve never been, but from what I’ve heard the air is at least clean.” She held the solderer over the wound. “Ready?”

He gritted his teeth and renewed his grip on the spear. Then he nodded his head.

She pressed the red hot tip to his flesh. Sharp pain lanced through his leg with enough force to make him gasp. Even with the pain and through the fowl smelling air and his mask he could smell his own burning flesh. His stomach rolled queasily. 

He breathed through the pain and bit out, “And the air doesn’t try to suffocate you.”

She moved the solderer farther across the wound. “ _I'd much prefer,_ _if given the choice,_ _a death of a frying heat_ _beneath the suns of Tatooine t_ _han the long, slow boil f_ _rom a humid Taris night_ ,” she murmured in a distracted, sing song tone.

She stuck out her tongue absentmindedly as she finished the last of the soldering of his flesh. He had to give her credit for wielding the instrument with a steady hand. The other hand she had placed on his knee with a strong enough grip to keep him from reflexively retreating from the pain she was inflicting in closing the wound. Normally, such a touch would have been highly invasive and even embarrassing to the Mandalorian, but she handled him with the same professional care she would a piece of delicate but stubborn machinery and the pain left little room for any thoughts to linger over long.

“There, that should do it.” She clicked off the solderer. “But stay right there for a moment. Let me get that salve or this will just open up again.”

She returned the solderer to the toolbox and retrieved a small pot and a mostly clean rag. She opened the pot and reflexively grimaced at the smell. He did as well, even through the mask. It was an entirely different smell than that of burning flesh but equally unpleasant. It was a putrid yellow-green color and similar in smell to that of the slimy fungus all around only a hundred times more potent.

He eyed the stuff with suspicion. “What is that?”

“Well, it’s certainly not bacta, but it’s good at keeping you from getting an infection and stopping wounds from cracking open again. Both of which you need.” She collected some of the nasty stuff on a finger. “May I?”

He nodded. She had already proven that she knew what she was doing. The scar would be one of the less ugly ones left after such treatment. That was, if it didn't become infected later on. Which considering the state of the junkyard around him, was a very good possibility. Din wouldn't turn down anything that might lessen the chances of infection. 

The mechanic gently dabbed the ointment to the fresh cauterization. It stung a little initially, but it quickly was replaced by a numbness that gave him hope that he might be able to hobble out of this junkyard under his own power. After tearing the rag into a more manageable strip, she bound the wound tight enough to make him wince.

"Easy there," he grunted. 

"Oh please," she scoffed as she finished the final knot. "Im sure you've had worse." 

That was very true. 

"Alright." The mechanic rocked back in her heels and brushed her blood covered hands off on her jumpsuit. "You can pop your beskar back on now. That should hold up well enough."

As he buckled the thigh guard back on, she fished the canteen back out.

“Here.” She held out the canteen to him. “Have the rest.”

He held up a hand in refusal. “Thank you, but I can’t.”

“I know, I know. You can’t take off the helmet around anyone. But you’ve lost a lot of fluids and you need this.” She tossed it to him and he caught it on reflex. “I’ll go over there.” She jerked a thumb toward a curve in the path as she stood. “I won’t look, I promise.” Already walking toward the spot she’d indicated she called over her shoulder, “Just tell me when it’s back on. Oh, and keep an eye out for spiders. I don't have anything that'll save you if one of those buggers bite you."

He looked around his surroundings with a new wariness. Trandoshans, mutant rats, toxic smog, dangerous scrap that threatened to fall down upon them at any moment, and now poisonous spiders. Taris truly was a hellhole and he'd been to some of the worst cesspits in the Outer Rim. At least, by some miracle, the mechanic wasn't trying to kill him. 

Din's thirst got the better of him and, after checking that the mechanic wasn't spying on him, he took his helmet off. Anxiety filled him immediately. Other than the two times he removed his helmet for the Child, once to find him and once to say goodbye, he had always taken his helmet off in the privacy and security of the Razor Crest or a privet bunk in the covert. The junkyard was about as far from being privet and secure as Tatooine was from Coruscant. But he needed the water. The mechanic was right about that.

He gulped down the lukewarm water, ignoring the foul aftertaste, and reveled in the relief it offered his parched throat. He drained the canteen entirely and it wasn't enough to sate his thirst, just to ease it. Resting his head against the dented, cool surface of the metal and breathed in the foul smelling air. He would survive this. He had gotten out of worse before. The first thing he would do would be to drink an entire tank full of water. Then he would sleep for a very long time. And he would never come back to this rock, not for a planet's weight in credits. 

"You alright there Mandalorian? Still alive?" The mechanic called, pulling him from his thoughts. 

"Yeah," he grunted before putting the helmet back on. Some of his unease lessened with its return. "Helmet's back on."

"Good. This spider here was just about to beat me at a staring contest."

He shook his head. What a strange woman. Not the strangest that he'd ever met, by far. But she certainly could give most a run for their credits. 

She emerged from behind the scrap, mask back in place. "Hey, Mandalorian, I never did ask; how many of Shizeheem's goons did you manage to kill before you ran away?"

"I didn't run away."

Mandalorians did not run away from a fight. They fought to the very end. Or they disengaged briefly in order to get a better handle on the situation. They did not run away from a fight. 

"I'm sorry. How many did you kill before you made a strategic disappearance?" She corrected. 

Din glared at her from behind his visor. "I got seven in the hangar, shot one on the way out but I don't know how bad, and I killed three more in the junkyard."

She nodded her head, but seemed far less impressed than most would have been after hearing someone had killed ten trandoshans and lived to tell the tale. "Alright. That means we've only got at least ten more we might have to deal with."

"Dank farrik," he cursed. Ten more trandoshans? He'd hoped it had been less than five. 

"Don't you worry about them, Mandalorian. Between the two of us, we can handle them easily."

He groaned, only partly in pain, as he hauled himself to his feet. "You do realize they're trandoshans and they're hunting us?" 

"No way!" She gasped, the modulator doing nothing to hide her sarcasm. "I thought they were a pack of Voorpaks!"

Din conveyed as much annoyance at her as he could through his body language. She, of course, ignored him. 

"Come on, Mandalorian." She hoisted her toolbox once again and set off down the path once again. 

"Kriffing mechanics," he grumbled under his breath as he limped after her. Hawk-batshit crazy, the lot of them. 

"What was that, Mandalorian?" She called back over her shoulder. 

"Nothing."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hettir - to burn


	5. Beskar'ad Gotabor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I haven't posted in a while. I had hoped to have more frequent updates, but last week was crazy! I had three exams over the course of 24 hours on top of planing my little brother's birthday and am still recovering from the utter exhaustion caused by the whole mess. 
> 
> Hopefully a long chapter will make up for it!
> 
> Anyway, as previously stated I know jack shit about mechanics and flying anything, much less a space ship, and I don't have the mental fortitude to do anymore research. So sorry.

The smog cleared some when they reached the edge of the junkyard, but the air was no less soupy and opaque. Fog lay heavily over the swamp, obscuring all but vague shadows that could have been anything: trees, the wreckage of old ships, or even giant slumbering creatures. 

A shiver of unease ran down his spine as he stared up at an ominous red glow that bled through the fog above the twisting shadows of the trees' reaching branches deeper within the swamp. 

"Its one of the border towers," she explained quietly, distain dripping from her voice more thickly than the slime coating the fungus that was even more prolific here where the junkyard gave way to nature. 

He cocked his head questioningly at her. 

"Everything within them is Shizeheem's property and none of his property leaves without his permission. Not in one piece anyway."

Din gritted his teeth together. It might be worth coming back to this planet just to kill the bastard. 

"Careful," she warned as they entered the swamp. "There's more than spiders here that will kill you if you're not wary. Especially keep an eye on the water. Plenty of greedy bastards in there."

"At least these ones won't try to sell my armor," he remarked as he moved a little further away from a nearby pool of dark water. 

"No, but they won't appreciate the indigestion it'll cause them."

He shook his head and carefully followed after her. 

The swamp was wild and overgrown. Vines and various species of fungi grew rampant over the ground making the footing treacherous. Yet, the mechanic moved through the swamp with no hesitation, her footing sound as she picked her way along the path that even his discerning eyes had trouble making out. He was careful to follow in her footsteps. 

A little too carefully as it turned out. Din was so busy watching his footing and avoiding catching his spear on any low hanging vines that he forgot to watch the stagnant waters and didn't notice the single, large eye stock rise out of the water to watch them.

As they passed between the roots of a giant tree and the water's edge a red tentacle snaked out of the dark water and up the bank. He became aware of the creature when the tentacle wrapped around the ankle of his good leg and yanked forcefully back toward the water. Before he could do anything both legs flew out from under him and he crashed to the ground. Immediately he was dragged off the path and down the short embankment toward the now roiling waters.

"Mandalorian!" The mechanic screamed. 

Din scrabbled frantically for his dropped spear or anything he could use against the creature, forgetting the blaster at his hip in his panic. It likely would have been of little use anyway. He couldn't have hit anything. All he could see were the tentacles and teeth of the mamacore on Trask, its fearsome maw closing around the floating carrier and his child within. He reached desperately for anything, anything that might help him save the kid. But he was restrained, held in place by the fishermen. He struggled against their hold, but there were too many of them, their grip too strong. Water splashed around him. They were throwing him in to the water with the creature! He was going to drown! He-

"Oh no you don't, you overgrown, sewer kung!"

Then an odd, bubbling, hiss of pain that rose from the churning water and the tentacles around him fell away. 

Din came back to his senses as they retreated. He found himself half in and half out of the water, having been drug from path by the creature. A two foot long section of tentacle twitched and writhed in the mud beside him and dark ichor covered the ground between it and the water. He kicked the thing away from him and crawled back away from the water's edge as quickly as he could. 

"You alright, Mandalorian?" The mechanic asked as she crouched beside him, worry evident in her voice even through the modulator. 

He nodded, too breathless to reply. He hadn't felt fear like that in a long, long time. He had been more afraid when Moff Gideon had stolen his child, but this fear had blinded him, robbing him of his senses, and left him vulnerable. Too vulnerable. He would have died if he had been alone, paralyzed as he had been by the memories of the past and unable to defend himself. 

"Here," the mechanic murmured and pressed the shaft of his spear into his hands.

Din gripped it tightly enough to hurt his hand, clinging to the familiar and comforting feel of the beskar. When his breathing finally slowed some he examined the weapon, making sure it hadn't been damaged in the quick scuffle even though he knew it would take more than whatever that creature was to have even scratched the metal. It was fine, but the tip was wet and stained with ichor.

Normally he would have been upset that someone, especially an _aruetii_ , had used the weapon, but how could he when she had used it to save his life. It had been a good decision on her part. It had been far more effective against the creature than her quarterstaff would have been. Blunt force would have been little use against the rubbery, muscular tentacles. 

Planting the spear's butt in the mud, he started to haul himself back to his feet. The mechanic quickly wrapped an arm around his waist and, not for the first time that night, helped him. 

"You're lucky," she laughed when he got his feet fully under him once again. "Few people survive an encounter with a dianoga once one's got its tentacles wrapped around them." 

"No such thing as luck," he panted as his legs still trembled from pain, exhaustion, and fear. "Thank you, again. I owe you." 

"You don't owe me a thing," she waved him off dismissively.

"I do." She had saved his life how many times already tonight? And if they could get off this planet, which was looking more and more like a real possibility with each passing moment, it would be yet another time. "It might be a while, but after we get to Nevarro I can-"

"Mandalorian," she stopped him with a hand on his arm. "You've given me the one thing I've wanted more than anything for the last decade. A single breath of freedom is more precious to me than anything anyone in the galaxy could ever offer me. If anything, I owe you. Lets just call it even and get our asses out of here. Alright?"

He nodded slowly. "Alright," he said, although he fully planned on doing something later to repay her, even if it was as little as giving her some credits to help her start her life again.

"Good. Now, its not far. Just a couple more minutes and we'll be at the ship." 

With that, they returned to the path and continued on their way. This time the Mandalorian kept a much closer eye on the water around them. 

Still shaken from his encounter with the dianoga, he didn't notice the ship until they were almost on top of it. In his defense, it was very well hidden. The ship was where she had described, tucked beneath the giant boughs of a truly colossal tree that rose out of the swamp. One of the boughs was distinctive, twisting down to kiss the dark waters before rising back up to disappear into the fog and dipped in front of the vine covered ship. 

He eyed the ship speculatively when they got close enough for him to properly make it out. “I thought you said this ship could fly.”

“She can!” She protested defensively.

“It looks worse than the Belbullab.”

“Looks can be deceiving,” she scolded, pausing to waggle a finger at him as she pulled off arm lengths of three fingered vine from the side door of the piece of junk she expected them to fly out on. "Besides, I don't think there's a ship in the galaxy thats more of a pile of junk than that Belbullab."

“It’s an Auzituck.” At least, he was fairly certain it had been once. The gunner had been so heavily modified it was nearly impossible to identify the original make.

“Hey, the Wookiees know their spacecraft and this lady has a lot more going on under the hood than you’d think. She’s got a Y-wing fuel recycling system, 360 shields, fully functional hyperdrive, one of the most extensive star maps in the Outer Rim, sensor jammers, repulsorlifts for better atmospheric flight, and thruster jets for even greater maneuverability. I even fitted her with what will be a functional cloaking device once I get my hands on some hibridium or stygium crystals. Not to mention she-“

“As long as it can get me back to Nevarro,” he interrupted her. "Preferably alive."

“Astral! Nevarro’s great this time of year, or so I’ve heard. Now, help me get some of these vines off. I don't want to have them damaging the landing gear when we take off.”

They quickly set about removing the vines from the Auzituck's three landing gears. She worked at the more delicate removal of the thinner strands of the three fingered vines that had managed to worm their way into the machinery itself while Din used his vibroblade to cut away at the larger, thicker vines that were as likely to tear something off the ship than break themselves when the ship, hopefully, took off. 

Din was careful to not put his back to the water, even though the ground the ship rested on was dry and rose almost ten feet above the swamp water, and kept an eye and ear out for any other dangers as well. The swamp was full of life. Beside the fungi and vegetation, there were plenty of alien animals. He'd seen several of the spiders the mechanic had warned him about and caught distant flashes of flying night animals. Earlier, he'd caught the shadow of something predatory looking prowling far off in the trees when the fog had lifted some for a moment. The thick air nearly vibrated with the hum of insects. The blood sucking fiends swarmed around him, searching for any exposed skin. Thankfully beskar and armorweave were as effective at stopping biting bugs as blaster fire. 

As they worked in comfortable silence he couldn't help but admire the craftsmanship of the mechanic's ship. The more vines he removed the more he could see of the vessel. The vines and make of the gunner, plus the after factory add ons, had made him assume it was piece of junk. But this Auzituck was no piece of junk. The ship was multiple pieces of junk wielded together into something new and better. 

It had what appeared to be two quad laser cannons on either side below her lower deck cockpit, although they looked too small for a human to fit in. He caught a glimpse of what looked to be a third cannon on top, although he couldn't make out the model from down bellow. The transperisteel on both the upper and lower cockpit was in perfect condition, not a scratch on it. The durasteel exterior, while obviously salvaged from other ships and wielded back together, were of high quality and the mechanic's wielding of them was seamless. The ship looked more like something one would find in a Core mechanic shop that restored antique spacecraft rather than salvaged from a Taris junkyard and rebuilt in the middle of a swamp. 

It was beautiful craftsmenship and for the life of him, he couldn't imagine how she had gotten the ship out this far into the swamp, much less gotten the needed parts here to work on the vessel. It was difficult enough to get out here with just his armor and weapons. Hauling out engine components and durasteel siding, not to mention her toolbox, would be nearly impossible. 

Finally curiosity got the better of him and he asked, "How'd you get those thrusters out here? They look new." The welding on them looked fresher than some of the other work done on the ship. The ship had clearly been assembled together over a long period of time. Perhaps years even.

"I, ah, temporarily reprogramed one of the salvage droids. Benefits of Shizeheem being too stingy to hire someone to work on his own droids," she grunted as she pulled at a particularly stubborn section of vines and nearly ended up on her ass when it gave way unexpectedly. She tossed it aside and reached for another section. "I had originally planned on installing a virus via a maintenance droid to take out the towers as the collars wouldn't let us within fifty feet of the kriffing things. Sadly though, Shizeheem doesn't use clankers to maintain the towers."

"You're a droid smith?" He asked in surprise. 

Droid smiths were specialists. Finding one working on starships would be highly unusual. But, it would certainly explain why there had been so many droid parts in her hangar. However, the idea of sharing a ship with a beskar'ad gotabor made him slightly uneasy. But, then again, Kuiil had reprogramed IG-11 and there were few people outside of the Tribe who he had ever trusted more than the old ugnaught. He'd even come to trust the droid, to an extent. 

She shrugged a shoulder. "I like fixing things. Droids, spaceships..."

"And people," he added.

She laughed. "Not my area of expertise, but I make do."

"How long have you been working on this ship?" He asked as he pulled away a particularly thick vine that was as thick as his forearm. 

"Three years I think. I had been working on an old X-wing before, but I made the mistake of trying to hide that one in the junkyard. She got found just before she was almost done. Two years wasted. Thankfully Shizeheem didn't suspect a thing. I didn't make that mistake again. I repaired this lady's engines first and flew her over here. That may have been one of the most terrifying flights I've ever experienced and thats saying something. She didn't even have a kriffing floor!" She laughed, tossing a ball of vine cuttings over her shoulder. "She's been star worthy for a while now, about a year or so. I've just been flushing her out while I, well, waited I guess." She fell quiet and plucked absently at some hair thin tendrils spread across the durasteel hull. 

Five years she'd spent building herself a method of escape from this planet if she ever did manage to do the impossible and slip from her collar. Not to mention she'd been a slave for just as long before Shizeheem acquired her. Most slaves would have given up hope long before then. Din wasn't sure he would have any hope left himself after a decade of enslavement. 

"Uh, do you think you can use your spear to clear some of the vines from the side hatch?" She asked after the silence, now awkward, continued too long.

"Sure." He nodded and left her to finish up with the last landing gear.

Clearing the vines from the side hatch was easy work and mostly unnecessary. The vines covering the hatch were small enough that they likely would have just snapped when the hatch was opened. However, he did it without complaint, even when his abused leg groaned with protest when he stopped using the spear as a clutch in order to cut away at the vines near the top of the hatch, and gave the mechanic a moment of relative privacy. But sooner than probably either of them liked he had removed the majority of the vines. 

"Door's clear," he informed her. 

"Alright."

She stepped away from the landing gear and fished in her jumpsuit. She finally brought out a small metal device and tapped a couple of buttons on it. The side hatch opened with the soft hiss of well maintained hydraulics. 

With a dramatic gesture toward the ramp she said in an over the top, yet surprisingly good Coruscanti accent, "After you, good sir."

He snorted and limped up the ramp. He was more than a little curious about what the inside held. 

The ship was bigger on the inside than he expected. He shouldn't have been surprised. It was a Wookiee ship after all and no one would call a Wookiee small. The ceiling of the cargo bay was high above his head and there was enough floor space that he was sure he could use his spear with little worry about knocking into anything. Not that there was much of anything to knock into. While clearly structurally finished on the inside, it was bare bones. There were no furnishings. Only a couple of beat up crates, a tattered bit of canvass that had been fashioned into a hammock, and two empty transperisteel tanks that sat vertically on either side of the bow end of the cargo bay. He had no idea what the tanks would be used for. They were just a hair too small to be used as bacta tanks and the piping coming from them was strange to say the least. 

His exploration of the ship was cut short when he heard a startled yelp and grunt from outside. 

"Kriffing spawn of a milk-moofing, nerf-herding, spice addled Hutt!" The mechanic cursed loudly enough for him to hear every word clearly from inside the gunner even if the hatch had been shut.

"What is it?" He ducked his head back outside to see if the mechanic was alright only to barely manage dodging a blaster shot. "Dank farrik!"

"We've got company!" She yelled as she ducked behind one of the landing gears. 

"I can see that!" 

He grabbed his blaster and quickly returned fire, but the trandoshan had already found cover behind the buttress of a tree. And he wasn't alone. Three more trandoshan's appeared from the fog to fire at him. Cursing, he returned fire as best he could in the dark and fog. He winged one of them and managed to kill the first trandoshan when he popped up from behind his cover to take a shot, but soon the light from more blasters lit the night. The mechanic had said there were at least ten left and it looked like they had all found them. 

"How did they find us?" He yelled to the mechanic after he successfully dropped another shooter. 

"Kriff if I know!" She shouted back, still pinned down beneath the Auzituck. "Got anything that might distract them long enough for me to get inside?"

"No- Wait!" He reached into a belt pouch and found what he was looking for. A detonator, his last one. He hadn't used it earlier when he was fighting the trandoshans because a blast inside the hangar would have killed him as well. "I got something! You ready?"

He saw her heft her toolbox. "Ready whenever you are!" 

Well, here was nothing. He clicked the timer to the shortest delay and threw it as far as he could toward the thickest patch of trandoshans. It hit the soft ground and sunk into the mud mere feet from two of them. A heartbeat later it detonated, killing the two closest instantly, throwing another back into the swamp waters, and throwing up a great shower of mud that covered at least three more of the shooters.

The mechanic was already on the move, running as fast as she could while carrying the toolbox. She was faster than he thought she would be while carrying the heavy box, but still not fast enough. Three of the trandoshans had been far enough away from the blast to not be effected by it and began firing at the mechanic. She blocked most of the blasts with her toolbox and Din quickly began laying down cover fire and even managed to take out another one. However, one of them, Krissic, managed to shoot her in the side just as she reached the ramp. She stumbled and crashed down on one knee. 

With a furious growl, Din focused his fire on the green bastard. The trandoshan fell to the mud with two blaster hits to the chest and another between the eyes for good measure. In the meantime, the mechanic had managed to push herself back to her feet and made it the rest of the way up the ramp with her toolbox still in tow before the other trandoshans had recovered enough to start shooting straight.

"Are you alright?" He asked as he pulled her inside.

She dropped the toolbox to the cargo bay floor with a loud clang before she pressed a hand to her side with a wince. Her palm came away bloody, but not with enough blood that he was overly concerned.

"Yeah. Just grazed me," she hissed before wiping the blood off on the legs of her jumpsuit. 

She fiddled with the hatch control and the ramp began to retreat, if far too slowly for Din's taste. Hers too, it appeared, as she cursed colorfully under her breath and slapped the device in the palm of her hand a couple of times. It didn't make the ramp move any faster. 

"Add that to my to do list," she grumbled under her breath.

One particularly brave or particularly stupid trandoshan attempted to rush them in an attempt to get inside the ship before the hatch closed. Din shot him dead before he even set foot on the ramp. The others laid down heavy fire at the open hatch, but the two of them simply ducked out of the way until the hatch door finally closed. 

"Well, that should keep them for a bit," she panted, tapping the side of her helmet to make her mask retreat. "Hopefully long enough to get this lady off on her maiden voyage."

"This thing can fly, can't it?" 

He had higher hopes for that now than he had previously, but he still wasn't entirely convinced. At least, he wasn't sure it could withstand the rigors of exiting the atmosphere. 

"Oh ye of little faith," she snarked. "Besides she made it here from the junkyard. Although Im not certain I'd call it flying. More like falling horizontally. But in her defense, she was little more than framework at the time."

He snorted. 

"Shut it, Mandalorian," she snapped. "Now, are you going to help me get this lady in the air or not?"

"Lead the way," he gestured for her.

They hurried to the cockpit, well, hurried as much as they could while sporting their injuries. Thankfully, the mechanic's modifications of the ship had included switching the main cockpit from the upper deck to the lower one so they didn't have to climb up to access it. 

The cockpit reminded him almost painfully of the Razor Crest's, down to the arrangement of the three seats and layout of the controls. The only real notable difference he could see from a cursory glance was the seats were decidedly more ratty and didn't match, which was understandable considering she had salvaged them from a junkyard, and that there weren't any display screens that he could see which was odd, to say the least. Din couldn't recall ever encountering a ship without some kind of visual readout. 

As the mechanic slid into the pilot seat the controls lit up and the ship chimed. 

"Good evening, my lady. Sorry I haven't been around lately. I promise it won't happen again," she cooed to the ship as she began rapidly flipping switches and dials as she ran the pre-flight checks. Beeps and chirps sounded as the ship's systems began to come online. "Mandalorian, you know your way around a Nav computer?"

"On it."

He quickly moved to the control panel beside her and worked on getting the Nav system up online and making sure it was running properly. While he was over there he took the initiative to start in on the life support systems. A stream of more beeps and whistles followed him after each button he pushed. The noise was odd and starting to get annoying. Most ships weren’t this noisy. Honestly, the ship almost sounded like a droid.

His work was interrupted when a deafening boom shook the ship and sent him crashing against the panel as the floor beneath him tilted unexpectedly. 

"Dank farrik!" He cursed as his leg screamed in pain from the impact. 

The mechanic had some far more colorful things to say about the explosion that had rocked her precious ship. 

"Why those overgrown lizards-" she spat before devolving into a chaotic blend of Ryl, Huttese, and what sounded like Dosh. 

The Mandalorian only recognized about a third of the words that spilled out of her mouth, but what he could understand promised a world of pain for the trandoshans if she got her hands on them. She looked mad enough that he had no doubt she'd follow through with her threats. He would certainly be happy to lend her a hand. 

" _Don't damage that ship you idiots! Its not worth anything to me if you blow it to smithereens!_ " His audio sensors just managed to pick up the horse whistle of a kubaz.

He looked out the viewing point to see Shizeheem scolding a trandoshan holding a short range launcher. Evidently he had been responsible for the earlier explosion and hadn't cleared the method of attack with his boss.

Din was surprised to see Shizeheem here in the swamp. He seemed more the type to send others to do his dirty work than participate himself. He must have been truly desperate to not loose the mechanic to come here himself. 

"It'll be a rainy day on Jakku before you get your hands on my lady, you bug filled cur!" She snarled under her breath. She quickly threw a couple more switches and the engines roared to life. "Come on, my lovely lady. Lets show him what you got."

She reached for the thrusters and the ship smoothly, if slowly, rose from the swampy ground. The mechanic whooped and laughed as Shizeheem and his bodyguards ran for cover as she guided the ship out from under the tree's boughs. He almost joined in her elation. They were flying! They were going to get out of here!

However, she didn't take off immediately for the stars when she cleared the tree's undercanopy. Instead, she turned the ship back around to face the trandoshans. She flipped a switch on the console and said, "Gunner 1, Gunner 2 come online." A serious of whistles and chirps from the ship answered her. "Astral." She grinned. "Gunners, lock on enemy and engage." 

The night lit up as laser fire from the cannons pelted down on the goons below. The trandoshan with the launcher attempted to fire at the ship but an expert shot from the cannon hit the launcher, exploding it and with it the trandoshan. The rest of the trandoshans and Shizeheem scattered into the swamp, but the mechanic swung the ship around to keep them within range of the cannons.

"You have automated cannons?" He asked incredulously as he noticed she was only working the flight controls.

"I repurposed some old B1 clankers to-"

"You WHAT!" He yelled, a cold sweat breaking out under his armor.

"Easy there, Mandalorian-"

"There are Separatist droids on this ship?" He growled, grabbing her arm.

If he had known, he would have never stepped foot on the ship. He would rather take his chances with the trandoshans. The IG unit had warmed his viewpoint on droids in general, but his new found goodwill hadn't extended to Separatist droids.

She tilted her helmet at him. "Parts of them. They're wired directly into the cannons and can't leave if thats what you're worried about. Besides, I removed most of their programing. They pretty much only have their targeting systems in place along with just enough to work the cannons."

"They're monsters!" 

"No more than any soldier. Now," her voice turned steely, "let go of my arm before I tear your's off and beat you with it." She smiled sweetly up at him. "I've got a ship to fly, Mandalorian."

He let her go with a growl and sat down in one of the moldy seats and glared out the view port and tried not to think of the droids that were onboard. The skin beneath his gloves itched with the need to rip their wiring apart.

"You always this grumpy?" She questioned as she went back to chasing down the fleeing goons. 

There weren't many left. A blue trandoshan fled along a narrow natural causeway closely followed by Shizeheem. As he watched the trandoshan stumbled and Shizeheem shoved him into the water in his hurry to get away from the deadly flashes of cannon fire. 

"I don't like droids," he grumbled, watching the kubaz trip over a red tentacle. The dianoga wrapped itself around Shizeheem and dragged him into the dark waters of the swamp. Din almost felt bad for him. Almost.

"Hah! A fitting end for a piece of trash like you, Shizeheem!" She cackled as he disappeared beneath roiling waters. 

Satisfied with her old master's demise she tipped the nose of the ship up and rose above the swamp's canopy. "I happen to be fond of droids. What do you have against them?" She asked. 

"The death of my parents!" He snapped back at her. 

Din startled himself at disclosing that information. He hadn't meant to say it. It had just slipped out. It must have been the stress of the last, well, last couple of weeks if he was going to be honest. He hadn't been able to draw a deep breath since he'd turned over the child to that Jedi and he hadn't exactly been able to relax before that either.

"Oh." The mechanic cleared her throat awkwardly as she leveled out over the canopy. "Sorry, about that. I, ah, take it happened during the Clone Wars?"

Din didn't reply. He had already shared more than he felt comfortable with a practical stranger. 

She sighed and directed the ship toward the nearby glow of the border tower. He frowned. Hadn't she said they only had enough fuel to get to the moon? They needed to leave the atmosphere immediately if they had any chance of making it after her earlier maneuvers under the canopy.

When they were close enough to clearly make out the tower through fog, the mechanic got the ship to hover in front of the tower. The red air traffic light on top filled the cockpit with a blood glow. Solemnly she ordered, "Gunners, light her up."

The laser canons opened up, centered at the center of the tower where it rose out of the the canopy. The steel didn't hold up for long under the concentrated fire of the twin quad laser cannons. The red glow flickered then died before the tower tipped and slowly fell.

A shuddering breath slipped out between the mechanic's lips as the last piece of twisted scaffolding slipped beneath the canopy and was swallowed by the fog. Without a word she turned the ship in the direction of the distant moon and they rose into the night sky and toward freedom. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beskar'ad Gotabor - *droid smith*
> 
> Aruetii - outsider  
> Beskar'ad - droid  
> Gotabor - engineer or *mechanic*
> 
> * is a non-cannon Mando'a translation - aka my own attempt
> 
> Kung - scum (Huttese)
> 
> Stay tuned to finally find out the mechanic’s name!


	6. Me'suum'ika

Leaving Taris’s atmosphere went better than the Mandalorian had expected but rougher than he had hoped. To put it plainly, when they left the planet's gravitational field and the ship's artificial gravity should have kicked in, it didn't. 

The mechanic yelped and scrabbled for the straps of her flight chair as the cabin reached zero gravity and she started to float up out of her seat. Din's chair had no such restraints. He barely managed to grab the headrest and hold on. 

"You forgot to mention that you didn't install a gravitational control!" He growled. 

"I didn't forget!" She shot back defensively as she clicked the buckles into place. "Diagnostics said it was okay but its not exactly something you can test without-"

Then the gravitational control finally kicked in and Din flipped over the chair before crashing to the cockpit floor. Beskar did not make a good cushion, especially when gravity decided to body slam a person into a metal floor. Searing pain flared through his head, back, tailbone, and legs. His injured leg throbbed with with white hot fire with each beat of his heart which coupled with the pulsing pain at the back of his head to leave his eyes watering reflexively and gasping for breath.

"Hey, hey Mandalorian!" The mechanic called out as her hands flew over the console. "You still with me?"

He finally sucked in a deep breath and groaned, "Unfortunately."

"Anything broken?"

"Don't think so."

"Well, that's good."

He could see her nod to herself out of the corner of his visor, helmet shinning dully from distant starlight, which was the major source of lighting in the cockpit. She really needed to install more lights in here and turn off all those unnecessary sounds. The whole ship chirped and whistled constantly. Something about the cadence to those sounds made him very uneasy. It was like listening to droids talk. In fact, now that he thought about it, the pattern to the noise was almost, if not identical, to the ones they made. 

"Is the ship speaking Binary?" He asked incredulously when he could no longer draw breath without excruciating pain.

She shifted in her seat. "Um, yeah."

He blinked at her, not quite believing she had really said yes. "Why?"

"Because I programed her to," she said with a shrug. "I'm better with information being relayed to me audibly than visually."

That would explain why there were no readout displays, he supposed. Although, it was still strange. Wouldn't she want to look at something every once in a while? Besides, there was some visual information that just couldn't be as effectively communicated audibly. 

Din pushed himself up on an elbow to get a better look at the woman. "But why Binary?"

"It's a highly efficient language capable of transmitting information quickly while leaving little room for misunderstandings.” She finished with whatever she was doing with the console and leaned back in her chair after letting go of the controls. “It's a very effective form of fast communication, more so than most other languages."

He grunted. Din would have to take her word for it. 

After a few deep breaths to dissipate some of the lingering pain Din pushed himself up to his feet. He held onto the arm of the ratty seat for a moment as black dots danced across his vision. He was pretty sure the dots weren’t from his helmet malfunctioning.

"Can you take over?” The mechanic asked after his vision returned to normal and he sighed in relief. “I need to see what I can do about that gravitational control. She's on autopilot right now but I'd rather have someone keep an eye on her, especially when we get to port. I've heard that docking at the bay can be a little tricky."

"Sure." 

"Astral. Here." She slid out of the seat and he sat down in her place. 

Din sat down and relaxed into the seat. It was still piece of shit but it was better than other two which he was certain she had merely installed out of boredom. His tailbone wasn't happy but getting off his feet was relief enough. He rolled his neck and looked over the controls. There were actually a few readouts here that he'd missed earlier because they were so small they nearly disappeared among the buttons and knobs. They only displayed the minimum information necessary, but that was alright. However, nothing was labeled which made the unfamiliar dashboard even more difficult to interpret. 

"Where are the deflector shield controls?"

"Here, this one brings up 360 degree shielding automatically and you can toggle these ones to concentrate power to certain areas," she pointed out the switches and then continued to give him the run down, pointing out the most necessary ones and then a couple more for good measure. At last satisfied, she stepped back to allow him to look over the panel himself. 

Din took a moment to familiarize himself with the controls. There was something elegant and simple to the layout, if unconventional. Once he figured out what everything was and where it was it wasn't too difficult to get the hang of it. He even started adjusting a few of the controls. The mechanic didn't make any objections and stood by idly.

Finally, she asked after he kept fiddling with the switches, “You got her?”

“I can’t figure out how to turn off the voice thing.” The constant beeping of Binary was really starting to get under his skin.

“You don’t like it?” She asked as she leaned over and began flipping switches.

“No," he grumbled. "It’s annoying.” 

There were plenty of languages in the galaxy that grated on the ear, but none quite set his teeth on edge like Binary. And he was on edge enough with the knowledge that there were old Separatist droids onboard, even if they were mostly parts. 

She tilted her head toward him and smiled. “To you.”

Beneath his helmet he glared at her. “I’ve never encountered a ship that talks.”

“There’s no ship in the galaxy like mine,” she laughed. 

“That's probably for the best,” he grumbled.

She snorted. “Don't insult my ship. Remember who’s butt she’s saving.”

He didn't say anything but glared more vehemently at her.

Finally she was done resetting the controls. “She shouldn’t say a peep, unless its an emergency. You got her now?”

He nodded. “Yes.”

“Astral, I'll see about the gravitational control. Don’t want that happening again, especially with cargo. Speaking of which...”

She walked out of the cockpit abruptly, but soon returned with her toolbox which now looked a bit worse for wear after being used as a blaster shield and then taking a tumble through the cargo bay. She placed it down next to an access grate set into the floor with a hiss of pain. 

Din swiveled the chair to see if she was alright. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," she waved his concern off.

He continued to keep an eye on her as she sat down with obvious pain onto the metal floor and pulled off her ratty scarf. She unzipped her jumpsuit, revealing a grease stained tank top just as ratty as her scarf. With a grimace she lifted up the tank top to reveal the wound on her side. It was still bleeding, dark liquid oozing down her ribs to her hipbone.

Din had to stifle the urge to growl in anger and it had nothing to do with her injury. There wasn't a gram of fat on her body. Instead, she was all skin and bones. She was strong and fit enough to have made her way out of the junkyard hauling to toolbox, but it was a wonder that she'd had the energy to do it. Her ribs and hipbones were more prominent than any healthy person's aught to be. Malnutrition wasn't the only sign of mistreatment left on her body. He couldn't see much of her skin between the blood, clothing, and grease but he could still make out raised, angry scars. Din had more than his fair share of scars and they didn't bother him, but that was because his had been well earned in battle. A slave didn't earn scars. They were given them. 

She wrapped the long scarf tightly around her abdomen and tied it off with a soft grunt. She pulled her tank back down and zipped the jumpsuit back up. Then she reached down and pulled up the grate, grabbed a handful of tools, and slipped down beneath the floor.

She left a bloody hand print on the otherwise clean floor of the cockpit. For a moment, he thought about cleaning it up. The blood looked out of place on the otherwise spotless floor. However, he was too exhausted to do anything but turn back to the control panel and stare blankly out at the approaching moon. 

After they fueled up Din was going to sleep all the way to Nevarro. He hadn't had more than a couple scattered, restless hours of sleep these last few weeks since the Jedi had taken the child. He was trained to operate on little sleep, but even he was running on fumes at this point. Even now he could feel the pull of unconsciousness sneaking up on him... 

“Hey!” Din quickly grabbed the arm rest of the chair as the gravitational control switched off. Not wanting to repeat the gravitational body slam he'd experienced earlier, he hauled himself back down into the chair and buckled himself in.

“Sorry!” Came the muffled apology from somewhere beneath his feet. “Gotta reboot it. Give it a moment.”

He grumbled some choice words under his breath as she continued to work and crawl around in the bowls of the ship. It wasn't long before the gravity in the cockpit returned to normal and a moment later the mechanic crawled back out of the ducts.

He glanced at her when she sat down in the seat he had recently vacated with the same solderer she'd used on him earlier in the junkyard. 

“Well, I think that fixed the problem with gravity," she said as she lifted her shirt and began cauterizing her wound. "Won’t know for sure until we leave the moon.”

Said moon was fast approaching. 

"Anything I should know about it?" He asked with a nod toward the object now dominating the viewing port.

She shrugged, wiping some of the blood from the wound with her scarf. "No atmosphere. There are only a couple of small mining outposts. People live in the older tunnels closer to the moon's surface that have been converted to living spaces. Outpost 6 is the largest and only spaceport. There's some surface level structures there like docking bays. Its where we'll find a place to fuel my lady up."

He nodded. "Anything else?"

After what had happened on Taris he wanted all the information he could get before walking into what could be another potentially problematic situation. He didn't feel like he had another fight in him tonight. 

"Not much. Heard the people are wary of outsiders, like most small communities. They don't have much in the way of goods to sell, except ore, and what little they might part with doesn't come cheep. But they've always got fuel on hand for anyone looking to avoid the authorities on Taris."

"So rough crowd?"

"Not as much as you're imagining, I believe." She paused to focus on a tricky bit of cauterizing. "No one asks any questions and no one makes any trouble."

"Good to know."

A moment later the coms crackled and the spaceport traffic operator began to guide them into one of the dome shaped hangars rising out of the pale pink-grey rocks of the moon's surface. Din steered the ship into the docking bay without any trouble, despite the mechanic's warning to the contrary. The gunner handled better than any ship of its size and make had a right to be which made what would have been a tricky approach to the hangars along a narrow canyon in the moon's surface as easy as docking at any normal spaceport. 

He set the Auzituck down in one of the smaller, out of the way bays in the hangar. It must be late in the cycle kept by the moon's inhabitants because there was little movement in the hangar and most of it was droids going about their business. That meant he was probably going to have to track someone down to fuel the ship up.

"How are our supplies?" Din asked as he counted the credits he had left as he prepared to leave the ship. He hadn't been able to retrieve the credits he had given Shizeheem and he didn't have many left. There wouldn't be many credits left after buying fuel. 

"Water tanks are full and and except for fuel the lady herself doesn't need anything. Otherwise, we've got nothing," the mechanic replied with a shrug. 

He grimaced. That wasn't good, but not surprising. At least they didn't have to pay for water. Water couldn't be cheep on a moon like this one where it had to be imported in. "Okay, I'll see if I can find us some food."

"Bacta might be a better thing to spend your credits on, if you can find any," she suggested. "Personally, I'd rather go hungry than get an infection."

It was a reasonable course of action, even if she didn't look like she was in shape to miss a meal. "I'll keep an eye out for some." 

"Thanks, Mandalorian." She gave him a small smile which looked strange with only her lips exposed. "I'll run some diagnostics while you're out. Don't want anymore surprises."

He grunted in agreement. The stiffness he was going to have later on was going to be in no small part due to that gravitational control hiccup. He'd rather not experience that again or worse. His confidence in the ship had improved remarkably since first laying eyes on it, but it still was, at its core, a piece of junk. 

"I'll be back soon," he told the mechanic, hoping that she wouldn't break character and leave him here on the moon as soon as the ship was fueled up. He didn't think she would, but she had little use of him now that they had left Taris. Din would try to be quick, just in case.

"Dank farrik," he cursed as he stomped back into the cockpit half an hour later.

The mechanic looked up from the floor where she had been cleaning the blood and grease off the floor with a wet rag. "What's wrong?"

"They charged a lot more than I expected for fuel." He rubbed at his helmet with one fist in a vain attempt to relieve the headache that was threatening to split his head in two, beskar and all. "There's no way we'll make it back to Nevarro on what I managed to buy." 

The mechanic scrabbled to her feet and went to the control panel to, he assumed, check the fuel gage. The ship was back to spouting Binary again, to his annoyance, but quickly quieted after the mechanic turned back to him. "You're right. We won't be able to make it any farther than Lucazec."

Surprise replaced some of his frustration. "That's farther than I thought. I didn't think we had enough to make it much past Phindar."

"Told you I fitted her with a fuel recycling system," she reminded him smugly. 

He shook his head in disbelief. Battle droid gunners, Binary readouts, and now a fuel recycling system so efficient that it nearly doubled the distance the ship could travel between fuel stops. How many other surprises had the mechanic added to this old starship?

"We'll worry about the fuel later." She pushed herself off the control panel. "Did you find any bacta?" She asked.

"Not much was open at this hour and you weren't exaggerating about supplies being expensive," he sighed. "I only had enough credits for one patch." He fished the patch out of his bag and offered it to her. "Here."

She didn't take it. "We'll split it. Even a small bit of bacta is better than nothing."

"Alright."

Neither of their wounds were serious by themselves. It was only the risk of infection that was dangerous. A full bacta patch would completely heal a wound like the ones they had and not even leave a scar. Splitting a patch would likely mean the wounds would scar but there would be more than enough bacta to prevent infection. 

"How about I get my lady back in the stars before we see about the bacta?" She asked as she moved past him and stowed the toolbox away securely beneath the control panel. "Being this close to Taris makes me nervous."

He grunted in agreement and sat down in the better off of the two spare seats. "I just hope the gravitational control doesn't decide to attack me again."

She laughed, already sliding into the pilot seat. "Hopefully I fixed the problem, but you better hold on tight just in case." 

The tight grip Din kept on the armrests of his seat as they left the moon ended up being unnecessary. There was a slight delay between leaving the moon's gravity and the control kicking on but it was nothing compared to what had happened earlier. It was so quick that it only caused a brief, weightless sensation in his stomach before the gravity returned to normal. 

"Karking hells," she cursed. "I thought I fixed that."

"I'm not complaining," he reassured, sighing in relief and letting go of the armrests. 

"Still, its the principle of the thing." She reached over and moved to the Nav computer. "How do you like the Althir System?"

"I've been to Althir III a couple of times. We should be able to find work."

There were enough scumbags hiding out on the planet that he should be able to find someone in need of a bounty hunter. And there wasn't a single inhabited planet that wasn't in need of a mechanic. 

"Astral." She returned to the main controls. "Standby for the jump to hyperspace."

Din renewed his grip on the armrest and prayed that the mechanic had done a better job on the ship's hyperdrive than she had on the gravitational control. However, his prayers were unnecessary. The hyperdrive purred like a tooka-cat and the ship slipped into hyperspace with little more than a friendly jostle. 

Once in hyperspace the mechanic set the controls to autopilot. "We should be to Althir in half a cycle," she informed him as she stood up and stretched. She hissed and put a hand to her side. "Let's see about that bacta."

She paused only long enough to retrieve her canteen before leaving the cockpit. Seeing as he had the bacta patch, Din followed after her.

"Vac's on the starboard side and fresher's to the port," she indicated the two doors set into either side of the short passage between the cockpit and cargo bay.

She opened the door to the fresher and Din caught a glimpse of a decently sized fresher for a ship this size as she filled the canteen at the sink. The small room was plain and without any fixtures, but that was too be expected. He couldn't imagine it was easy to get her hands on a mirror in the junkyard. 

Once the canteen was full, she led the Mandalorian into the empty cargo bay. She lowered herself down awkwardly to the cargo bay floor with a sigh of relief. Din joined the mechanic on the floor, siting with his back against the cargo bay wall. His back and tailbone complained bitterly at the maneuvering and contact with the hard, metal surfaces. After pulling out his vibroblade, he cut the patch in half and handed her one piece. 

She took it with a tired smile. "Thank you, Mandalorian." She passed him the canteen of water and a rag, "Here use this to clean your wound before you put the patch on."

As she unzipped her jumpsuit to administer the patch, Din caught a glimpse of a line of angry, raised skin along the column of the mechanic's throat. It looked like a burn and a fresh one too. 

Without thinking about what he was doing, he reached out and pulled the collar of her jumpsuit to the side to get a better look. Sure enough, there was a fresh burn the same size and in the same place as the one he'd made with the Darksaber when he had made the long cut through her slave collar. 

"Hey!" The mechanic swatted his hand away. "What are you doing?"

"Sorry," he apologized, shaking his head at himself, and quickly explained, "I didn't realize I'd nicked you."

She reached up and traced a finger along the two inch long burn on the side of her neck above her clavicle.

"Are you alright?" Din asked, feeling doubly guilty. He shouldn't have touched her like that without asking and he'd thought he had managed to cut her collar off without injuring her. 

"It's completely fine, Mandalorian, really." She waved her hand dismissively and flashed him a reassuring smile. "It'll be a nice little reminder that I'm free now."

The guilt didn't go away. Not only had he touched her without her permission and injured her, but Din realized that he'd also strong armed her into ferrying him back to Nevarro. Their agreement had only been for her to help him off Taris, not to bring him all the way back to Nevarro. It was a lot to ask of someone who had been enslaved only a couple hours ago. She probably had places she wanted to be and friends and relatives to track down and reunite with. 

Sensing his distress, the mechanic paused in her application of her half of the bacta patch. "What's bothering you?"

"I never asked if you're alright taking me all the way to Nevarro. You could always drop me off at a spaceport and I could-"

"Karking hells, Mandalorian! I'm not going to abandon you in some seedy spaceport with no credits and a bum leg!" She shook her head adamantly. "You got me out of that hellhole, off that rock, and bought the fuel to get us out of this kriffing system. The least I can do is make sure you get home in one piece."

Din supposed Nevarro was the closest thing he had to a home now, although he hadn't considered it. Even when the covert had been stationed there, he had considered the Razor Crest his home more than the planet. Since becoming the covert's Provider soon after they had moved to the planet he had never stayed long in the covert, staying only long enough to give the Armorer the hard earned credits that they desperately needed before flying off on his next mission. He'd spent most of his time in the Razor Crest. But now both the Crest and covert were gone now. Nevarro was familiar and Karga and Cara called the planet home and they were the closest thing he had to family aside from the few members of The Tribe who had survived the massacre of the covert and were now scattered to the winds of the galaxy. Karga and Cara were his friends, although he wasn't sure how far he could trust the guild master. 

"Thank you." 

She shrugged a shoulder and pressed the patch to her side. "It's no problem. It's not like I had plans to be anywhere beside that junkyard in the near future."

She cocked her head to the side and snorted in amusement, although Din wasn't sure what was so funny. His confusion only grew as she began to laugh. Her laughter grew belly deep and breathless and it wasn't long until she had flopped back on her back, still laughing. Din stared at her in awkward bewilderment as she lay on the floor laughing hysterically. It wasn't until she began to sob between fits of laughter that he realized that she was probably in shock. 

The rush from their escape must have finally worn off now that they were safely in hyperspace and moving away from Taris and the junkyard she had been trapped in and now the realization that she was finally free had probably hit her like an asteroid. Her reaction was not the strangest he'd ever seen and, in all honesty, it was amazing that she hadn't broken down like this earlier. 

"Are you alright?" Din inquired gently after her sobs had faded to a few hiccups and occasional giggle.

"Yeah, I just, whew, part of me never thought this day would ever come," she wheezed. "It just caught up to me all of a sudden, you know?"

"I understand," he responded horsely.

He didn't think he was truly able to understand exactly what she was feeling upon being free for the first time in years, but he could relate to experiencing such an abrupt change and the consequent turmoil of emotions that came with it. Even the best would feel overwhelmed with the shock of it all. The sudden loss of the child, even if he always knew he would have to give him back to his own people one day, still left him reeling. 

"Do you need a moment alone?" 

Din had never been good with emotions, especially when it came to comforting someone when they were in distress. He was happy to help patch up any physical injury or repair a broken weapon, but he had no idea where to start with an emotional wound. He'd always licked his own in privet. 

"Nah, I'm good." She sat back up and wiped at her nose with the sleeve of her jumpsuit. "I just needed to get that out of my system."

Indeed she appeared back to normal, or as normal as he had seen her. However, it was hard to tell for certain with the upper half of her face still obscured. Din could read a person's body language like a book most of the time, but in his experience the eyes said the most. 

"Are you hungry?" He offered. "I managed to find a couple of ration bars."

"Mandalorian, never ask if I'm hungry," she laughed. "The answer will always be yes."

He didn't doubt it. The last time she'd had a full meal had probably been before she'd been a slave. At least, as long as Shizeheem had been her master.

"Here." He passed her one of the two ration bars he'd been able to buy with the credits left after purchasing fuel and the bacta patch and wished he had more to give her. 

A truly genuine smile split across her face as she took the ration bar. "Thank you."

She unwrapped the ration bar and broke it the two. After tucking one half of the ration bar back into the wrapper and slid it into a pocket of her jumpsuit, she began to eat. She ate slowly, taking small bites and chewing methodically, making the bland tasting food last.

Din had done the same on occasion when his own supplies had run low while on a hunt that had dragged on longer than he had expected. While it helped trick the body into thinking it had consumed more food than it really had, it was still a sorry excuse for the real thing.

While she was eating, he removed his thigh guard and undid the carefully applied wrappings from his leg. The mechanic's handiwork had held up well through their flight, even with his encounter with the dianoga. But cauterizing a wound wasn't a guarantee to prevent infection, especially after a dip in water as nasty as in that Taris swamp. He poured water from the canteen onto the wound and scrubbed it clean with the rag just as she had done earlier. When it was finally dry and smarting painfully he finally applied the bacta patch. His skin tingled with the telltale sensation of good quality bacta and was soon followed by a cool numbness. He sighed in relief. At least the bacta hadn't expired or been of poor quality. 

When the mechanic had finally finished eating, the mechanic licked her thumb and used it to collect the crumbs from the ration bar that had fallen onto the floor. She sucked the crumbs off and tilted her head at him in consideration, which gave her a comical appearance due to the odd tubular attachment on one side of her helmet. 

"What?" He grunted after a long moment of scrutinization.

"Seeing as we're going to be traveling together for a while I can't keep calling you Mandalorian." Her lips quirked up in a grin. "So, what can I call you, Mandalorian?"

"Most call me Mando."

"Original," she snorted. "You want me to call you that?"

Din nodded. He wasn't about to share his name with the mechanic, despite everything they had just gone through. In the Tribe, only the Armorer knew everyone's name and almost never used them and only then in privet. Names were almost as sacred and privet as one's face and were shared only with the closest of friends and family. They were allies, but he didn't know much about her other than she had been a slave for the past decade, was a damn good mechanic, resourceful, and tough as durasteel. 

"What can I call you?" He asked in turn.

It was probably strange to her that he hadn't asked earlier. Or perhaps not. She hadn't offered her name at the time either. Survival had been chiefly on their minds after all.

She smiled and held out a hand. "Name's Sokana."

Din took her hand, which was calloused and strong from years of hard work and had grease imbedded in every line and crevice, and shook it. "Nice to meet you Sokana."

"Nice to meet you Mando." 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me'suum'ika - moon
> 
> As I've previously mentioned Taris doesn't have a moon in canon so everything about the moon is 100% BS.

**Author's Note:**

> Shabiir - screw up
> 
> Termites may or may not be a canon species but they've got ponies on Endor so I'm going with it.


End file.
